**Exploitation**

204 New Approaches to the Study of Marine Mammals

Academic Press;2005. p298-322.

[84] Rweyemamu M, Roder PL, Taylor WP. Chapter 15, Towards the Global Eradication of Rinderpest, In: Taylor WP, Barrett T, Pastoret P-P. (Eds.) Rinderpest and Peste des Petits Ruminants, Virus Plagues of Large and Small Ruminants. New York: pp. 298-22,

**Chapter 9** 

© 2012 Brito, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

© 2012 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Portuguese Sealing and Whaling Activities** 

**Northeast Atlantic Environmental History** 

The 16th century maritime Atlantic journeys were one of the most ground breaking and prolific sources of scientific knowledge in nautical cartography, geography and ethnography, and also in the natural sciences [1]. The European pioneering exploration of Africa and Brazil resulted in writer and naturalist records of the new, exotic and useful, originating natural history studies in Europe based on observations in zoology, botany and tropical medicine [2]. Since then, explorers, travellers and traders have brought animals and natural objects to Europe. Previously, however, coastal inhabitants all over the world used

near shore habitats and resources, altering marine ecosystems and their dynamics [3].

The marine environmental history refers to the mutual interactions between humans and the marine natural world [4], ambitioning to understand how humans have integrated the sea into their living style through the changes brought by time [5]. The environmental historical approach offers a multidisciplinary and long term research approach to anthropogenic interactions with marine life, albeit being largely incomplete when compared to its terrestrial counterparts [3]. Most of the available literature pertains to the study of invertebrates [6] and fish [7, 8], while historical research on the presence of cetaceans over time remains largely incomplete, particularly for the Northeast Atlantic [9]. Marine mammals are very useful tools to evaluate marine environmental changes as they are easily identified in historiography (particularly in letters, journey diaries, natural history treaties), making it possible to relate their presence records with their environmental conditions [10]. Marine mammals are of relatively large proportions that require surface visits to breathe, features that enhanced the awareness and interest in different human cultures around the

**as Contributions to Understand Early** 

**of Marine Mammals** 

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Cristina Brito

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/54213

**1. Introduction** 
